The Lumia 520 is being billed as the most cost-effective Windows Phone yet, with an estimated price of less than $200 (current prices are slightly north of that, around $230). Featuring a 4” IPS LCD display (with Super Sensitive Touch), a 1GHz Dual-core Snapdragon, 512MB of RAM, 8GB of internal storage (expandable with microSD), a 1430mAh battery and a 5MP rear camera (none for the front), the Lumia 520 packs quite a bit into a light (124 grams) body for an affordable price.

While the 520 won’t be exciting for our more high-end audience, the phone is important to growing the Windows Phone ecosystem, especially in emerging markets and for the common person who doesn’t give much thought about smartphones.

We’ll have a full review in the coming days and for now, you can look at some photos and our video walkthrough of the unboxing and OS in action.

Isnt this devie supposed to come with a coloured pair of headsets??
Dan, I saw you got black ones with the device but the official video of Lumia 520 shows the coloured headsets. I was thinking of buying this phone for the omph factor it will pack with everythig coloured. Please dont tell me i would have to buy them ...

There is a good website, researchphones, where you can purchase the new Nokia Lumia at a very good price with or without a service plan. At the moment they are waiting for it to be released in the US to sell it. Windows Phones are starting to catch on, its a great product. Great review WpCentral, unbiased reviews and evaluations are hard to find these days.

Nokia will start selling Lumia 520 this month still here in Brazil for R$ 599.00 reais ($ 301,00 dollars) ... The Lumia 720 will come here for R$ 999.00 reais ($ 503.00 dollars). It is very likely that these prices are reduced quickly because the Federal Government of Brazil shall approve a law this month that will decrease the taxes in smartphones manufactured in Brazil, reducing the final price by as much as 25%.
NOTE: the Lumia 520 is already found in the Nokia Store in the State of Amazon for RS 599.00

I still think the Lumia 620 is the best looking Nokia in the portfolio if it had the 920's 4.5 inch display or larger that would be epic!!! The 920 isn't bad at all tho, I own it. People who say its too thick and heavy are waaay to critical or just dumb. Its perfectly acceptable considering the technology and innovation within.

The 520 is a good basic smartphone, at under $200 there isn't a whole lot out there (esp. in Android) that could beat it in terms of performance. I strongly hope this drives Nokia's sales in the entry/mid-end segments.

Fantastic device. I hope when the review comes out, there is a section where the 520 and 620 go head to head. The 620 is at a very good price point. But here in india, the 520 launch for atleast 80$ cheaper. And i couldn't really figure out what does one loose out on by choosing to save those 80 bucks.

Will Nokia be sending you a Lumia 521 for you to review as it's the US version of the 520?
I'm interested in seeing how the 520/521 will do on the market. With a lag free WP8 experience this has the potential to capture a lot of lower-end market share compared to budget Android handsets. Top that off with Nokia and their stellar features, apps, and support and you've really got a lot to look forward to for first-time smartphone buyers upgrading from feature phones or those who are just looking for an affordable smartphone with a great "bang for buck" value.

I'm not bashing Android. I agree with you that the Nexus 4 is a steal for its price of $300 from the Google Play store; there's currently nothing that can match its value per dollar for features at that price for a high-end phone (at full price the Lumia 920 is $450, HTC 8X is $400, and the 820 is $350). Android is the only choice when it comes to low-end budget smartphones ($200 and below) and this is what I want to see challenged. Right now it looks like only Windows Phone is willing to try to add competition to Android in this price range and that's good for both WP and Android. If WP is successful with the Lumia 520 we'll see more high-end features trickle down to low-end Androids and WPs as they compete for marketshare which is a win-win for everyone. A $70-100 difference can be a deal-breaker for buyers on a budget who don't need all the high-end phone features but want the cheapest decent smartphone. The 520 is looking to capture these customers and those who have never had a smartphone before so apps that WP doesn't have isn't as much as a deal-breaker, but it's still a factor of course, compared to experienced smartphone users that have a list of their must have apps.

I noticed this as well, but WPCentral have covered the W1.
Here in the UK O2 offer the W1, so I went in to look at it. It runs the OS as smoothly as anything else, but felt insubstantial, even hollow. I went for the Lumia 620 instead and love it.
Huawai haven't done a great deal to get our attention. They're very welcome, but if their efforts on Windows Phone are half-hearted, so will their results.

This phone will be a popular one in price sensitive countries like India.I am personally going to buy this phone and I know 5-6 people who have already pre-ordered it from Flipkart.And its available for just $192 here.

Agreed. In countries like India where people need to buy phones at full price (no contracts or carrier subsidies) the high entry point of WP devices was a major factor in cheap droids like the galaxy Y going viral. Hopefully this will change some of that..

620 has ClearBlack, which sounds like marketing crap, but the 620 screen does have darker blacks and nicer contrast than the 520. The 620 doesn't have a better GPU than the 920, it's just that the 920 has to push 2.5× the pixels (higher resolution).
Super sensitive is a valid abnormality, though I think it has more to do with timing than anything. The 520 is a newer model and Nokia seems to have worked out how to get super sensitive in there without bumping up the price too much (supply chains, deals, etc).

I would appreciate it if 3G/4G compatibility or a lack thereof in regions outside North America could be mentioned in future articles or video reviews. The "edge only" comment in the video really confused me.

I'm not sure I'm ready to make Windows Phone my main mobile device, but I'm in need of a cellular "home" phone. This may do nicely and allow me to try out the OS in a real world device without having to invest a lot of money.

Did the Office tile become transparent? It's a bright orange on my phone and its using the large tile size. In this picture in the story it looks like the same red'ish color as the rest of the tiles...

They do for their high end and US bound devices and are pretty great about it. For some reason, when it comes to international phones/carrier unlocked/things not destined for the US, they don't seem interested in getting us their phones. (I could probably bitch and complain but I have better things to do during the day).

It's odd, since although the majority of our site is US based, we're pretty damn good at being global for the Windows Phone community ;)

Would you like somebody to give you a phone with 2GB RAM!!! Don't be ridiculus, you only get what you pay for and hardware wise you get more than what you pay for this is the only handset with dual core at this price bracket :)

I don't think he's being ridiculous. Sure for the price it's an amazing phone, I don't think he was disputing that. I just think for a lot of people it's a more practical size/design than even the 920 and if it wasn't for the 512mb of RAM they'd probably prefer it. I reckon if there was a 1GB option for another $30 - $50 a lot of people would take it over supposed higher end devices, hell I reckon some people would even pay $100 - at which point you are in the same price range as the 720 (and again a 1GB option there would be great).
I can see why from a business perspective Nokia won't do this to cannabolise 820/920 sales, but for the amount of people that would take the option knowing they need 1GB for certain games, I doubt it'd be sufficient enough to make much of a dent. I think they've more done it from a cost/simplicity point of view.